


Beast of Eingana

by inferablefiend



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Beast AU, F/M, Love, Rescued, alien smut later, kind of beauty and the beast, not kidnapped, slow burn (I hope), though it feels that way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 03:41:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11283036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inferablefiend/pseuds/inferablefiend
Summary: REWRITE-Shepard survives the crash into Eingana. A planet she knows nothing about. While attempting to send out a distress signal, she is captured by a turian who has self-isolated himself for the safety of his family. Can she escape from him? Will she want to? Or will Nerissa Shepard help save him?





	1. Rescued or Kidnapped? I can't tell

**Author's Note:**

> I thought about a complete and reboot of this fic. Go back to the fairy tale like Beauty and the Beast. Add more magic, make it more like the Disney version rather than what I’d come up with, but no matter how many times I wrote my beginning, it never clicked. The reason I am rewriting this even though the original is fine is because there is no plot. I have flimsy little pieces of stone that don’t hold up under the weight of its own story. I know sometimes readers are afraid of writers completely rewriting a story. Completely undoing what they loved about the original. I am going to stick to the original. I’ll tweak a few things here and there, and essentially it’ll be a different plot, but it’ll have the same characters and atmosphere. If you were expecting me to utterly change it, I’m sorry.

The unknown ship’s laser cut through the Normandy’s side, starting fires and sending electrical sparks to Shepard’s feet. She pushed on her helmet as the oxygen once trapped was released into space. “Shepard!” Liara cried, her voice edged with fear, slightly grating in Shepard’s ears. The commander winced, turning down the volume in her helmet.

“I’m right here. I need you to get everyone into the escape pods,” Shepard commanded, pressing a few buttons on the screen in front of her.

“I’m not leaving you!” Liara went completely unbalanced, falling into Shepard as another attack sliced through the ship.

“Liara. Now. That’s an order.” She pushed the asari back onto her own two feet. “Is there anyone else out there?”

“Joker. He won’t leave the helm.” The asari hesitated. Shepard could hear her breathing hard. After a moment, she left the commander, rushing people into the escape pods.

Shepard shook her head. Joker was an excellent pilot, but would unnecessarily go down the ship because that’s what a good pilot did. Or at least that’s what he thought. She fought her way through the debris, her mag-boots keeping her glued to the ship as an open part of the hull exposed her to zero gravity. 

It always took Shepard’s breath away to be standing under the stars the way she was. The alarms, fire crackling and screaming faded into the background as she felt the only person in the galaxy. 

Gravity resumed as she entered the cockpit. Joker sat there, rapidly and desperately pressing controls and routing power to different parts of the ship. “”We have to get out of here,” she said, gripping the back of his shirt.

“No! I won’t let her go down. I can save her.” Joker’s button pressing became more frantic. 

Shepard almost bodily lifted him from his seat, careful not to hurt him, growling in his ear, “It’s not worth it. Save your own ass.” Joker acquiesced to her words, allowing himself to be pulled up.

Shepard ungracefully pushed him into the cockpit, feeling the ship under her feet shift in a way that made her uncomfortable. It suddenly gave away, breaking apart and taking her with it. Before free falling, she pressed the button to send Joker’s escape pod out. Her foot tangled in some revealed cables from under the dash of the helm. Unable to cut them in time, she shoved her body between the dash and the pilot chair. And prayed.

The nose of the Normandy pivoted downwards as it was pulled into the gravation of the planet below her. She could feel it plummeting down. Her vision got dark, eyes trying to stay open and watch where she was falling. But where she stuck herself for what she assumed would be safety, trapped her under the immense weight of nothing.

*

Shepard woke, head bursting with pain. The headache started along her brow, pushed into her eye socket and stopped in the middle of her cheek. Panic laced through her chest for a moment, brain catching up with her ability to breathe. Her left hand went straight to the helmet, to the back of her neck. The oxygen cord was severed. Logically, she should’ve been dead. But she wasn’t. The air she breathed inside the helmet stank of staleness. She closed her eyes glad she was alive. Glad whatever force up there was looking out for her kept her in one piece.

But she wouldn’t go unscathed. The pain in her head was probably a concussion. A common injury. Careful not to swing her head far too much, Shepard tried to get a look at her surroundings. The window was covered in dark brown dirt. The Normandy took most of the beating, wires hanging out uselessly, sparking pathetic displays of electricity. She tried to push herself up from between the pilot chair and the dash. Her right arm became stuck, tangled in the cables that trapped her in the first place. As she tried to move it, pain fired up the arm, digging into her shoulder. Gasping, she stopped pulling, attempting to move the bulky helmet to take a look at her arm.

Panic was today’s theme emotion. It shot through her like a bullet, causing short and fast breaths to fog up the glass. With her free hand, she pulled off the helmet and threw it somewhere into the wrecked ship. Then and only then was she able to actually look at her arm.

Nerissa’s arm was tightly wedged between her body and the dash, wrapped almost completely in wire. The moving of the ship must’ve jolted it just right and she broke it in the way down. Or it might just be sprained. 

This is what she was trained for. Immense pain. Tight places. Pushing down panic. This is what she was trained for and there she sat like a helpless puppy, planning her next move. Her instructor would just tell her--well scream at her to just move. Ignore the pain. Get your ass up, Shepard!

Gripping the head of the chair, Shepard began to pull herself out of the tight spot. Her arm fired new pain up its nerves with each pressure, swing and, movement. She bit down on her sleeve to keep the screams from escaping her mouth.

Shepard didn’t want to make noise. Needed to keep silent in case something stalked the ship looking for survivors. Her right arm hung useless at her side as she found her feet in the tilted cockpit. Shepard wanted to stay and look at the damage. Maybe salvage enough junk from the Normandy to send out a distress signal. The tiny arcs of electricity she saw earlier were a good indication that she could build herself one.

First rope. 

Deep and wheezing breaths passed through her open mouth. She coughed deeply, attempting to remove the dirt or dust out of her lungs. Where had she landed? The nose of the ship was far too buried in dirt for her to get a good look at her surroundings. Shepard pushed her matted hair out of her face. Her boots had a hard time finding purchase on the uneven ground.

Shepard’s boot slipped on a jagged piece of metal, sending her careening into the side of the ship. The impact jarred her broken arm, tearing a scream from the battered woman. Sweating profusely and trying to see through the haze of her pain, she continued to stumble out of the ship until pure, unadulterated sunlight hit her face.

Blinking her eyes didn’t help adjust them. She closed them for a moment, enjoying the warmth and sounds of birds or predatory animals of the planet. When she opened them back up, her view was endless green Tall trees with lush leaves and an ocean of grass rippled in the breeze. It was almost like an untouched Earth.

Shepard limped away from the wreck, looking for survived fabric to tie her arm to her side. She turned to look at the damage.

The body of the Normandy lay in three parts. It dug a pretty deep track into the planet’s ground, tearing up trees in the process. It was right then she noticed the vines hanging off the downed trees. Perfect. 

Shepard tired the vine around her as tightly as she could with one hand, hoping it wouldn’t give her a rash or was poisonous in nature.

As the day grew longer, the area around her got hotter. The pain in her head subsided into a dull throb she could deal with. Shepard didn’t know a lot about concussions, but she knew that if she had one, she would possibly be unconscious, so she could count herself lucky.

She took off her suit, sitting near the helm in a tanktop and spanx. Her boots lay discarded somewhere in the ship.

Thirst made itself known, yelling for water. Each dry swallow felt like sandpaper grinding the inside of the throat. Hunger made an appearance as well, but was easily ignored. First the distress signal, which was proving harder to build as the salvaging of her poor ship wasn’t going as planned.

The planet may not be suitable for human life either,” Shepard muttered to herself, pulling off the covering of some wires. “Where am I going to find food? Was there even a slight change the galley survived?” It was probably buried under the dirt. No way was she digging it out. She’d have to make do with whatever local food grew near her.

All her talking muffled out any noise outside the ship. A sharp exhale of annoyance also muffled the pulling of a gun. Nerissa continued to mutter to herself until it was pushed against her neck. “Name!” a guttural voice growled.

Her N7 training kicked in. She slowly put her hand up to show she wasn’t a threat. Getting up was going to be hard, but she could manage it. But when she pushed her legs out from underneath her, the pressure of the gun grew harder on the neck. “I am with the Alliance Navy. My ship crashed into your planet after an unknown thre-”

“Name!” it repeated.

“My name is Commander Nerissa Shepard. I am with the Alliance Navy. My ship crashed into your planet after an unknown threat attacked us. Most of my grew got away. I am attempting to build a distress signal.”

“No.” A hand, or scaled claws from what she could feel, pulled her backwards onto her feet. The harsh movement made her arm throb with pain. The thing pulled her out of the wreckage, not caring what she hit on her way out.

Shepard was spun around, the gun pressing to her head. Sunlight haloed around the body. A turian! What was a turian doing on a planet far from Palaven?

“Please, I broke my arm in the crash. You aren’t helping!” Shepard wanted to yank herself from his grasp. She hated being manhandled, but he was the one with the gun. If she so much pulled herself in the wrong way, she could literally lose her head.

The turian glanced at the arm. “Tell me why you’re here. Did he send you? To finish off the job?” His claw gripped her injured shoulder. Shepard screamed in pain, leaning into his grip hoping to stave it off. Shadows crossed the turian’s faces, but those blue eyes. They shone like the sky behind him, mean and ruthless. A neverending pool of blue. “Who sent you?”

“No one, damnit!” Shepard growled, pulling herself from his grasp, feeling the bones wrench together. She pressed her lips into a fine line. No way was she saying more until he calmed the fuck down.

“If he didn’t send you, why are you here?”

Anger was something Shepard didn’t control well. Normally it was counting and breathing exercises to calm her down. But this fucker had a gun to her head when she hadn’t done a thing wrong. She resisted the urge to push it away and shoot him with the one strapped to her boot...that was thrown elsewhere. “I told you who I am, why I’m here and what my plans are. There is literally no more than that.”

The gun slackened. The turian slowly pulled it away, a clear look of distrust written in his face plates. “There is always more than that. Come with me.”

“No. I need to send out a distress signal. They’ll be looking for me.”

The turian didn’t wait for her to move. He didn’t answer her. One claw gripped her left hand and pulled her along with him. She had to run to keep up with his long legs. Shepard almost stopped in her tracks when she saw the side of his face. Healed and webbed like, the scar stretched from the corner of his chin, across his mandible and into his faceplate. Three claw like scars ran the course from his right browplate down to the webbed scar under his eye. The turian staring and pulled her up in front of him. In her surprise, Shepard didn’t move. With his right claw, he continued to pull her to wherever he was going.


	2. Naked Human. Dressed Turian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second chapter in the same day? What can I say?

It took her less than a few minutes to get up the courage to talk to the turian. The pain from her feet slipping on rocks and tripping over roots caused her to speed up the process. “Do you mind?” Shepard yelled, pulling her hand from his. “It’s a hundred degrees out and you’re dragging me across a planet without proper protection against it.”

The turian opened his mouth in utter protest. He stared at her reddening, blistered feet. Shepard crossed her arms over her chest. “If you say you are military,” he began, sighing deeply as if she was pushing his patience, “where is your uniform? Your boots?”

“First of all, I was in a spacesuit and secondly, the heat may not affect you, but I was overheating in the cockpit. I kept on the bare minimal. You wouldn’t let me grab my stuff.”

“You never said anything about extra clothing.” The turian grabbed a corner of his jacket, ripping away a generous strip. He ripped that strip in half.

Roughly, the tuiran grabbed her foot without warning. Shepard balanced herself on him, gripping the thin fabric of his jacket. “You never gave me the chance. I was worried you would shoot me before I got the words out.” Smooth, slightly muscular body shifted underneath her fingers as he not-so-gently wrapped one foot then the other.

He shrugged her off, righting her as he got up. This time he kept a slower pace so Shepard could pick her way through the tough terrain.

“Do you mind telling me where we’re going?” Shepard asked after a stretch of silence. He didn’t answer her nor turned around. “A name at least.” Sheaprd felt the nee to fill the silence. So much mystery surrounded her captor/rescuer. The turian continued as if she never spoke.

It was his turn to break the silence. “Why didn’t you send out a distress signal with your omni-tool?”

She entertained the idea of keeping quiet. Give him his own brand of his medicine, but thought otherwise. He had the gun. She was left defenseless. “I didn’t think to try. It wasn’t on my wrist when I woke up, so maybe it was destroyed in the crash.”

This seemed to satisfy the turian, or it didn’t. Shepard couldn’t read him. Her throat became quite dry, each swallow feeling like sandpaper. The sun beat down on her, turning her skin into a light red color, darkening with each passing moment. “Hey,” she said.

The turian turned, keeping a sizeable distance between him and her. Not so sizeable he wouldn’t be able to shoot her dead if given the option. “I am thirsty. I haven’t had any water since the ship.”

“My name is Garrus,” the turian said unexpectedly, tossing her a canteen.

The canteen was heavy, so heavy she almost dropped it. Shepard could hear the water sloshing around which only made her thirst more pronounced. Without thinking of Garrus, she drank deeply, water spilling out of her mouth. When she pulled the canteen away from her face, it was considerably less heavy.

“I...sorry.” She handed him the canteen back.

“It’s fine. We’re not far from it.”

“Far from what?” Now that he was talking, maybe she could more information about the planet. Maybe go back to her ship and gather her uniform up. Give her something to wear other than spanx and a tanktop.

Garrus glanced back. He didn’t speak again.

The two walked the rest of the way in silence. Shepard tried to gather in her surroundings, gain what little knowledge of the planet she could while attempting to keep up with him. Every once in awhile, a screech would echo through the air, causing Garrus to pause and put his hand on the gun in his belt.

“What is that?”

“Nothing.” No, it’s not nothing. If that screech could cause this hardened turian to pause, it was something.

He refused to talk to her again. 

Tall green trees with grey trunks stretched up towards the sky. Vines wrapped around low hanging branches with beautiful, harmless looking flowers every couple of feet. “Where are we?” Shepard asked, attempting to strike up another conversation.

Garrus stubbornly remained quiet. The further they went from her ship, the more vegetation they saw. “Will any of this be safe for me to eat?”

Garrus was not speaking to her, that much was clear. Shepard stopped trying to talk to him. What was the point? At some moment, he had her walk on her own, trusting her to follow him...blindly into the forest. She looked behind her, wondering if she could make it back to the ship. Wondering she could escape from him.

And then...was Joker looking for her? Liara? The Alliance? Did they know where the  _ Normandy  _ went down? IF she could get away from him and survive the trek back to the ship, would she be able to get the signal to work? Would she be able to send out a distress signal before dehydration or starvation took her life?

That was a lot of “ifs” and “whats”. Uncertainty filled her with dread. Shepard hated to feel unsure about anything. There was comfort in certainty, comfort in control of the situation. Which she definitely wasn’t at the moment.

It didn’t help she didn’t know what planet they were on. If she had her omni-tool, she’d be able to scan the plants. “You aren’t very talkative.”

“I find silence nice.”

Shepard didn’t speak again. He rescued her after all. Him being pelted with questions probably didn’t help her survival.

A small clearing opened up before her. Sweat trickled down her back, pooling in the curve above her ass. Though Garrus’ jacket helped, she couldn’t wait to soak her feet in water. Shepard would get a bath right?

In the center of the clearing, there was a ship. Plants grew over the gray hull, telling her it had been there for a while. “How do you keep the ship running?”

Garrus pointed to bits of black glass attached to the top of the ship. “It’s ran by the power of the sun. Primitive I know, but it works without me leaving the planet.”

“What about food?”

“I have food to feed me. Not humans though. We’ll find something.” He picked up his pace, pushing buttons on the front of the ship. A door whooshed open, cool air spilling out.

Shepard took a moment to look at the outside of the ship. A bush of what closely resembled a rose grew near the front. Vines covered the ship’s name. “Are you coming?” His voice broke through her thoughts, startling into moving. 

The cool air made her pace brisker. “What…?” She had no time to get the next word out as he pushed her in. Cool air wrapped around her body, making her shiver in her less than adequate clothes. 

“Is there any VI on the ship?”

“None of the computers are working. No VI. No signal.”

“Are you hiding from someone?” So this ship was only set up with the basics. Water, electricity and possibly food, which made her stomach grumble.

Garrus’ sideway glance told her everything. He led her further into the ship. It was a small one with a long narrow hallway stretched to the back. “First we need to treat your arm,” Garrus said.

“Can we let me take a bath?”

“No. It needs to be set first.” Garrus dug his claw into her shoulder and steered her into the medbay. The room was minimal in decorations. Two rows of three beds were sitting in the middle along with some basic med-care. 

Shepard sat down on the bed, careful of moving the arm attached to her side. Garrus took a knife and cut the vine from her arm. It fell away limply, revealing the pale skin that was protected underneath. The bone in her forearm protruded funnily, though it didn’t break the skin. He handed her something thick and leathery.

“Bite down on this.” Shepard did as she was told. She took it firmly in her mouth and screamed around it as Garrus set her arm properly. 

“You couldn’t give me some pain killer or something?” Shepard growled when he was done wrapping it.

A grin passed across his face for a moment. “Honestly, it never occurred to me.”

While he was putting away his tools, she took her good hand and unwrapped the fabric from her feet. “Now, how about a bath?”

“You can’t get that arm wet.” Garrus tied a sling across her neck and gingerly put her arm in it. 

“How am I supposed to bath then?”

Shepard’s sigh shuddered through her body. Fear bubbled in her stomach and churned uncomfortably. What was he going to do with her after he was done patching her up?

The sound of a running faucet brought her back to him. He was filling a metal bucket. “Oh, fuck no. Seriously? No.” She tightened her arm against her body and pulled her knees up. 

Garrus leaned against the sink, glaring at her. He didn’t want any of her bullshit. “I don’t want to do this anymore than you do,” he said, drying his claws on a towel. “At least let me help you out of those clothes.”

Ugh. Fine. She stretched herself to her full height. Shepard started to pull her clothes off one handed. She succeeded in taking off her spanx. “Can you cut off my tanktop?” 

Garrus approached her, carefully keeping his eyes on her rather her naked bottom half. He took the same knife and cut the tank top underneath her broken arm. Helping her out of it, she stood there completely naked. 

“Can you...please leave so I can clean myself?” Garrus’ eyes were now on the floor, focusing on everything rather than her. He handed her a sponge and left without another word.

One wouldn’t think that cleaning yourself would be so hard, but her left arm only had such a reach. She dipped the sponge into warm water, lingering her hand in the bucket. It was such a relief, the warmth that spread to her wrist versus the cold atmosphere of the room.

She wiped down her skin down, leaving trails of cleanliness in the grime. The warm water hurt the blistered, red skin, but it was worth it. Shepard grabbed a small white towel and dried herself as well as she could. There was nothing in the medbay to cover herself expect maybe… a plain white sheet she stole from one of the beds.

It wrapped around her awkwardly like a toga without the exposed breast. 

The door slid open silently. The narrow hallway outside was completely void of life. But sounds came from what she assumed to be further inside the ship. She ventured towards that noise, unsure of what she was going to see on the other end of the door.

Garrus was setting up a table with some plates. Whatever food turians ate and some unknown looking fruit or vegetables with meat on hers. 

“This is your plate. I scanned some local plants and animals. It’s the closest thing to human food I could find. We’ll see if you can eat them safely.”

Food was food. She sat down, pushing the sheet down and immediately started shoveling the food in. It was slightly off, but edible.

Garrus sat down next to her and ate his food with less frantic movements. “I want to go back to my crew,” Shepard said after a few minutes of silence.

“I can’t let you send that distress signal.”

Shepard shook her head, anger growing. Fucking serious? She wanted to stomp, scream, throw a temper tantrum, but  _ onetwothreefourfive. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.  _ Calm as she could be, she said, “Why? How else am I going to get home?”

“You aren’t.”

“You cryptic asshole. Can’t you tell me why you’re in hiding. Do you think I’m stupid?”

Garrus thumped a clenched claw on the table. He startled her. “I do wish you’d stop asking questions.” He grabbed her plate steadily, and left the kitchen with it. He reappeared a few minutes later, took her by the hand and led her out the same door. Back down the hallway and into a door to the left.

It was a fairly large room with nothing but a dresser, desk and bed. “You will stay here for now on.”

“What? You can’t just lock me up in a room like-” The door banged shut before she was able to turn and bang on it. “Seriously? Let me out!”


	3. Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My updates may not be as frequent as this goes on. Hell, I'm not even sure if this'll be a slowburn as I suck at those. But here is the third chapter. I hope you enjoy.

Shepard woke to golden light illuminating her bedroom, throwing shadows across her sheeted body. Did she fall asleep? The last thing she remembered was banging on the door, eating her food and...curling up on her bed while screaming herself raw. 

What was the bright side of this? Broken arm, broken  _ Normandy,  _ emotionally unstable turian. Well… She was alive right? Held prisoner, but alive. She sat up allowing the sheet to fall away from her.

There was fabric sitting on the edge of the desk. Careful not to jostle her arm, she held it close to her body as she approached it. Picking up garments with one one, she could see it what remnants from the  _ Normandy.  _ How did he get those? She had been wearing a spacesuit when she crashed onto his planet.

They looked like military fatigues, ripping in a few places but otherwise still intact. She pulled the jacket over her bare torso, buttoning up the front to cover her arm. With a huge amount of difficulty, she pulled on the pants.

It was strange...not having underwear.

Shifting in her pants uncomfortably, Shepard approached the door. Instead of whoosing open like it had for him, it stayed firmly closed. She pushed on the door, hoping it would open with human contact, but nothing. No. This couldn’t happen. She needed to get back to her ship. She needed to get…

A fear crept up her back like a spider. Latching onto her spine and burrowing into her nervous system. The room closed in on her, making it hard to breathe. Her jacket suddenly felt very tight, crushing her right ar,. Fire started at her fingertips and traveled through her body.

She closed her eyes. What had her therapist said? Calm and breathe. Much like her anger exercises. She counted to ten. Breathed in through the nose and out through the mouth. Shepard sat in the middle of the room, legs criss-crossed. If she concentrated hard enough, maybe the door would open for her.

_ Open! Damn you! _

It didn’t open the damn door. She crawled as well as she could over to it and placed her back to her, dug her feet into the ground and pushed. Which was futile and she knew it, but it did make her feel better. 

The door slid open, breaking her support. Shepard went back in a tangle of limbs. She breathed in sharply through her teeth as the jostling sent a sharp pain into her injured arm. When she opened her eyes, she was staring at Garrus’ crotch. “Is there something I can do for you?” he asked, peering over the tray at her.

“Yes. In fact, you can let me out.”

Garrus stepped over her and placed the tray on the desk. “I don’t need you exploring where you don’t belong.” He turned around and helped her up. “What were you doing against the door?”

“I don’t like confined places. I don’t like being locked against my will,” Shepard said sitting on the bed. On the tray sat a teapot and two tea cups. One of them had a sharp V chip in the brim. She looked anywhere but him for a moment.

She coughed, wanting to fill the uncomfortable silence. “Thank you for the uhm...clothes,” she finally said picking at the jacket.

“You’re welcome.” His back was turned to her and soon clinking was the only sound that filled her room. “You should drink this. It’ll help with your pain.”

Shepard got up and met him at the desk, taking the teacup from him. What a strange little thing for him to have while he was hiding. She tapped the side. “Why are you hiding?” 

Garrus paused with the teacup almost to his own mouth. It was hard to read turian faces. Their muscles--plates rather were different than humans. Different movements meant different things and Shepard, locked away as she was, wasn’t learning anything. But the tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife. “You won’t stop asking will you?” he asked.

Shepard shook her head and took a sip of the tea. She immediately spat it out. “This is disgusting!”

“I don’t have enough painkillers to keep you out of constant pain, so unless you are able to handle the pain of the arm, drink up.” No sympathy or empathy in his voice. In fact, it had gone quite flat. Almost monotone.

Garrus turned to stare at her. Shepard kept the eye contact as long as she could before looking away. “We all run from something in our lives at some point. Maybe I could help you.” Helping him might put him into a lull of security and then she could sneak out… Make it to the  _ Normandy  _ to send out her distress signal. “Please.”

She put the teacup down and stretched her hand out, a sign of trust. The turian huffed at her, his tongue clicking the top of his mouth. “No.” He left the teapot where it was. “Drink the tea as needed.” Then out the door.

_ Damnit.  _

 

Shepard did as she was told, passing the hours telling stories of her and her crew’s adventures out loud in case there was a camera she hadn’t seen. Soon all of the tea was gone and the sun was setting.

“And then Wrex did this-” A knock at the door alerted her.

“Are you decent?” Garrus asked through the door.

“Are you going to let me out?” Shepard called out.

“You aren’t sending that distress signal,” he growled back, anger lacing his words.

Shepard closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “Yes. I’m decent.”

Garrus entered. “Do you want to hunt for your dinner tonight?”

Now that’s not what she was expecting. Shepard avoided hunting when she could, but there was no ‘human’ food on this planet. Hunting would be a chance of stretching her legs. “I can’t hunt. I only have one arm. And no shoes!”

Garrus pointed to a corner she hadn’t looked at. There were her boots and the gun laying beside it. “You trust me with my gun?” she asked, going over to pick it up.

“No, but I know that I wouldn’t want my only defense taken away from me.” With his help, they got the boots on her. 

“Why are you being nice to me?”

Garrus led her out of the ship and to the left. The opposite way of the  _ Normandy.  _ “We’ll be living together for a long time. Wouldn’t it be easier if I was nice?”

Shepard kept quiet. She didn’t want to live with him. Not for a few months or the rest of her life. But he had a point. If she played nice back, but there could be a sense of security between them and that would give her an opportunity to find her way back to the ship.

“So basically, I'm joining you on a hunting trip.” She tried to keep up with Garrus’ long legs. 

“If you can keep that mouth of yours shut.”

And for once, Shepard kept her mouth shut. She followed him wordlessly through the forests, over a particularly swollen river and into a small cave where with a single gunshot, he killed something looked close to feline.

She didn’t get a good look at it because the thought of eating a cat suddenly reminded her of her mother’s pet from when she was young and that was just upsetting. “Can I talk now?” Shepard asked on their trek back.

The poor animal was slung over Garrus’ shoulder, dripping blood down the back of his clothes. The turian sent her a sideways glance, but didn’t actually say no. “Look I won’t stop wanting to reach my crew.”

“I’ve noticed your fixation on it.”

“ _ But  _ I’d like to know a few things. It might sate my curiosity and stop the questioning.” Garrus shot her a look like he didn’t believe her. She didn’t understand why. Shepard was mostly honest with him.

Garrus sighed heavily. “No.”

Shepard continued the rest of the journey in silence. Why wouldn’t he talk to her? Wasn’t she easy to talk to? Well, she knew she was easy on the eyes even with her hair as dirty and matted as it was. 

When they got back to the ship, Shepard asked if she could use his restroom to wash her hair. He stared at her for a moment and took her to a proper bathroom. One that had both a toilet and a bathtub. When he left her, she unbuttoned the jacket and maneuvered herself as carefully as she could underneath the faucet. 

No matter the angle she tried, it didn’t matter. Her injured arm got in the way. “God damnit!” she screamed in the empty room. She screamed some more, allowing it to build and scrape her throat. Releasing all of the energy and anger she felt over the last day or so. 

“Stupid fucking laser. Stupid fucking planet. Stupid fucking turian who won’t let me-”

“Are you quite done?” said his voice from the door.

Shepard swung to look at him. “No. No I’m not. I’m done pretending none of this bothers me.”

“Cause you’ve done such a good job of hiding that,” Garrus said sarcastically, crossing his arms and leaning against the open window.

“Whatever the fuck you’re running from, I could help you beat it. Whatever it is. Or hell, my crew would help us. We could kill or capture this son of a bitch and do whatever you need to do to-”

“I said no and that’s that.”

“You are so fucking unreasonable. Don’t you think I under-”

“You understand nothing,” Garrus growled. His stance became more pronounced, rigid. Military. His sky-blue eyes glared bullet holes into her. “You understand nothing I’ve gone through.”

“You won’t tell me what you’ve gone through.”

“I don’t trust you.”

Shepard, realizing she was half-naked while arguing, grabbed her jacket and swung it onto her shoulders. At least it offered some protection. “You left me my gun. You let me live. It’s obvious there is an underlying amount of trust.”

Garrus stood there silent. He continued to stare at her even when she paced out of anger, stomping her feet in the unfairness of how he was treating her. She was a simple human. Why would sending a distress signal-

“You’re afraid of them finding you, aren’t you?” she asked when it hit her.

The turian pivoted on his heel and left her in the bathroom.

**Author's Note:**

> I hoped you enjoyed the first chapter. There are minor differences between the original and this one. The second chapter is where the changes begin.


End file.
